Taboo Vacation

I'm a big fan of Jane Black's work for all kinds of reasons. Her fiction, exemplified in Clean Sheets' "The Painter," balances spice and jazz with profound emotional insight. Her essays, such as "S/M in the Suburbs," explore the relatively uncharted territory (in public discourse, that is) of the sex lives of parents. I'm always hungry for more, which is while I'm thrilled that Jane agreed to stop by Suite 69 to share a story with us. I'm baking cookies today, which is fitting for the maternal theme. However, I want to remind you that these are adult cookies with nuts and booze. There's my Chewy Pecan Bars with fresh pecans from Georgia and Amaretto Almond Bars with plenty of amaretto and white chocolate chunks. They're sweet and sinful and I bet you can't stop at just one. Today's creamy and sensual photo, "Toga," is again the work of Suite 69's resident visual artist, Nikki Magennis. Enjoy!

Taboo by Jane Black

Before our vacation last year I would have said that there were no taboos between us, no secret sex fantasies that we wouldn’t share with one another. I would have been wrong.

At the time of our vacation I was in the process of weaning our baby; Keith and I weren’t going to take him (or his older brother) with us. This would have been a problem a couple of months ago, back when my breasts became uncomfortably full after just a few hours away from the baby’s eager little mouth. But now he was down to nursing once a day, and I wasn’t producing much milk. I decided that it would also be safe to leave my loathsome little electric breast pump at home. (Using a breast pump to get milk out is like using a string and doorknob to extract a tooth-it works, but it’s not exactly something you do for fun.)

So we left the pump, but we packed plenty of toys. We filled a small suitcase with wrist and ankle restraints, a couple of ropes, a posture collar, a blindfold, and a nice selection of whips. After all, a good vacation requires the proper gear. We packed our stuff in the car, waved bye-bye to the kids and their grandma, and drove for five hours to get to the hotel where we were staying. I spent most of the first evening hog-tied, collared, and blindfolded, being spanked and fucked silly. A most auspicious beginning.

But by the second evening, I knew I’d made a mistake, breast-wise–my boobs had become uncomfortably engorged with milk… I told Keith that we had a small problem.

“Do you want to go home?” he asked, concerned.

“No, and anyway we couldn’t get there fast enough.” I told him.

“Well, should I go try to get you a breast pump?”

I didn’t answer him, because I’d already come up with another solution.....

Want to read on? Well, have another cookie--I knew you'd want more--and pop over to Good Vibrations.

Sex in the Suburbs? (You Bet!)

Today I want to talk about sex in the suburbs. Now, hold that yawn! I know it’s fashionable in an outré kind of way to assume that married couples with kids have bad sex or no sex and that an article about “sex in the suburbs” would be very short if not nonexistent, something along the lines of the purely snow-white pages of The Wit and Wisdom of Spiro Agnew I spied in a head shop back in 1969.

My dear blog reader, such an assumption is very, very wrong.

But don’t take my word for it. Check out the essay of my friend Jane Black, who has just received her contributors' copies of Love in the Time of Colic: The New Parents’ Guide to Getting It On Again by Ian Kerner and “naughty mommy” Heidi Raykeil.

You may remember Jane’s excellent story “The Painter” from Clean Sheets and her eloquent report in support of my Oakland reading for X: The Erotic Treasury. Her essay, “S/M in the Suburbs” is yet another example of her fine writing. It's witty, honest, beautifully written and yes, surprisingly romantic. Although I’m but a dabbler in edgy eroticism (although inarguably hardcore when it comes to gingerbread houses), I recognize this sentiment very well:

“Playing out an S/M scene colors our relationship for days -- and sometimes weeks -- afterwards. The afterglow lasts much longer than it does with vanilla sex. We're more gentle with each other. We touch each other more. We laugh more. We're more patient with the kids.”

And kudos to Ian Kerner and Heidi Raykeil for having the guts to include this essay in a book that is obviously getting plenty of reads from Amazon-shopping suburbanites. (Check out my review of some of his earlier books).

You can read a slightly longer version of the print essay online over at Good Vibrations. A must for parents—and a worthwhile read for anyone interested in the erotic mind.

Am I Hardcore?

That’s what erotica writer Jane Black (check out her bittersweet and very hot story of sexual awakening on Clean Sheets this week--it's a good one!) told me when I described this year’s gingerbread house project. What makes this year’s special is a little experiment of mine, inspired by a recipe for stained glass cookies. I decided to melt some butterscotch disks and see if they might make nice windows for a gingerbread abode. And in fact, this leap of creativity paid off nicely. Note the golden glow emanating from the edible edifice—the perfect touch of tingly warmth for the long December nights.

Again I’m reminded of the refreshingly uncomplicated response this kind of creativity inspires. The compliments abound and they seem totally sincere. Maybe that’s because no one else is crazy enough to spend so much time on gingerbread houses? I mean, there are professional pastry chefs who do it for display in hotels or other public places. They’re definitely hardcore, but it’s their full time job and they get paid for it, the dominatrices of the genre. And then there are those kits of pre-baked pieces you glue together with icing and let the kids decorate. It’s a great idea, but, well, a little too soft and wimpy to turn me on.



I won’t lie to you. This little cottage looks simple and charming enough, but it took me hours to draw the pattern, bake the pieces, assemble and decorate. An absurd amount of time, really. There’s no doubt it’s like a short story. You want it to look seamless and self-contained. No sweat, doubts or swear words ever disgraced its conception. But they lurk just the same in the secret history of the smooth, finished piece. If those gingerbread walls could talk!




Anyway, I think Jane has a point, but I certainly wasn’t as hardcore this year as when I spent weeks on “Holiday Inn,” pictured above. That was definitely hardcore. But maybe this year it would be better to call me “mediumcore.” You know, vanilla, but made with fresh vanilla beans and organic cream, topped with homemade hot fudge and fresh, toasted pecans with a glace cherry on top?

What do you think? (Slack-jawed admiration of the magical wonder of my gingerbread house is shamelessly accepted).

A Note for Insane Gingerbread Architects: The windows are an easy trick to tuck in your bag. Just place two butterscotch candies together on a parchment-lined cookie sheet, bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes or until melted and spreading, then smooth with a spoon, if necessary (it may not be). Lift them from the paper after about a minute with a spatula and cool on a rack. Glue them to the inside of the windows with royal icing and voila!